It looks like Google is not giving up on the disputes of its Fitbit deal. A report by Reuters says that the company is set to win EU antitrust approval for the earlier deal with its new set of concessions.
As per the report, Google has reinforced an earlier pledge and says it won’t access the Fitbit data for Google Ads. It will strengthen the monitoring process as well. In a statement, Google says that it is formalizing the commitment to support rivals and says it is all about devices and not data. Further, it says it will also allow Fitbit users to connect to third-party services via access to API.
API is an application programming interface which is a set of instructions for accessing web-based software application. Access to this will help rivals to get data from Fitbit’s tracking devices. However, the report adds that the EU Competition enforcer will now seek feedback regarding the new concessions from rivals.
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Google announced the acquisition of Fitbit in November 2019 for $2.1 billion. Post this, the company is under a lot of criticism. Also, consumer groups, privacy advocators have come out with antitrust and privacy issues. Recently, the EU opened an investigation on the acquisition and said that it will lead to the collection of sensitive health data.
For the unware, Fitbit is an American consumer electronics and Fitness company. As per IDC data, it had a 3% of the global wearable market holding a fifth place. Apple leads the segment with a close to 30% share as of Q1 2020. The position in between is occupied by Xiaomi, Samsung, and Huawei respectively. Google is acquiring the company probably to catch up with the competition.
Coming back, the EU Commission earlier said that Google should neither reinforce its dominance in advertising nor have control over Fitbits’ data from rivals. To this, Google had replied with a pledge not to use fitness data. However, the EU Commission rejected it on grounds of insufficiency. Recently, it had also asked rivals about interoperability and healthcare issues, data necessity. And asked for steps that Google needs to take to end the concerns. The deadline to decide the fate of the deal is December 23 and the report says that the decision could come earlier as well.
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